Pharyngula

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 16, 2011 9:45 AM

It's too bad there isn't a chemical glossectomy drug for Mike Adams.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | June 16, 2011 9:52 AM

So when are we going to see Dilbert start acting on his "natural" urges?

Posted by: Balstrome | June 16, 2011 9:55 AM

All Scott Adams has written is a plea to allow him to indulge his whims without condemnation,

No,it's even worse. It's a bid to gain a perverted martyrdom by saying that he is a square peg in a naturally round hole, but he, personally has risen above it and is still blamed for all the others who do these natural things, while he resists the urge.

Posted by: Dick the Damned | June 16, 2011 9:55 AM

tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive

Well, i guess i've managed 'offensive' a few times, but not deliberately. It takes two for 'offense' to take place. But the others, nope. I guess i might possibly be coerced into 'tweeting', if i ever find out what it's about.

So, not all men, (you & i, PZ, & many others i've known), are the selfish, uncivilized, sub-humans that Scott Adams thinks we are. But i guess he is. Which seems strange & disturbing, because Dilbert is an engineer, & i thought that we engineers were mostly not like that, as recompense for being boring.

Posted by: Alice Bluegown | June 16, 2011 9:58 AM

Well, I think I see what Scotty's problem is - he genuinely thinks women are equipped with square holes. To quote a very old Radio Active joke, "Can I suggest you consult a biology book, or maybe a copy of Penthouse?"

Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/lV.3hF1ut__HvgJQ8mswuNMC4DXnhps-#b6c46 | June 16, 2011 10:00 AM

@DeePhlat: LOL, I had almost forgot about those horrible books. IMO, it seems like Mr. Adams is not getting sex and for good reason. Now he wants to whine about just how horrible women are for not liking him and his "natural" urges. :p

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 16, 2011 10:02 AM

Damn you blockquote!!!

*fist shake

Posted by: Illuminata, féministes fin de jeu | June 16, 2011 10:19 AM

Man, I'm getting so sick of this script.

BIgot says something hateful, gets called out on it, pretends he was just trolling.

Commercial break.

Bigot posts again, this time whiny and self-pitying, and reveals himself to be as clueless, privileged, entitled and bigotted as he claimed not to be before the commercial break.

Boooooring.

Posted by: alysonmiers | June 16, 2011 10:21 AM

I think Mr. Certified Genius really is just doing it for the page hits.

Which is not to say that he doesn't actually think this way. I'll bet he really does have that bleak view of men's natural urges, and that pathetically limited concern for women's natural urges. But I'm also sure he knows by now that he tends to get a lot of attention when he says shit like this, and he really enjoys the way Google goes nuts whenever he opens his keyboard.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | June 16, 2011 10:24 AM

One million Internet dollars says that when this blows up in Adams' face, he'll claim he was trolling, issue a notpology and dig himself deeper.

Don't forget the sockpuppetry.

Posted by: Abelard | June 16, 2011 10:27 AM

All Scott's angst boils down to his inability to actually treat women equally as thinking human beings first and foremost. Coupled with his obvious inability to reason beyond his own sexual "needs" and you have a person who will use any justification, religious or otherwise, to promote male "privilege" and denigrate perceived female promiscuity. In terms of sexual maturity, he is still a child, crying because his desires aren't being addressed.

Reading this tripe one comes to appreciate just how much we really do live in a society still dominated by archaic bronze age beliefs, and how religious indoctrination has crippled Scott's ability to exercise thought and empathy for his fellow human beings. In my opinion, the more we can fight and agitate for women's equality and for the sexual freedom of all human beings, the less influence the religiously indoctrinated will have.

Posted by: informania | June 16, 2011 10:28 AM

"Go live in a cave if you resent having to get along with others and respect their autonomy."

Take that Zarathustra!!

I always feel a 'natural' urge to slap any rapists face off..

Posted by: Mr.Kosta | June 16, 2011 10:33 AM

This is the single worst case of projection I've seen in quite a while. This Adams guy should seek help, before he submits to his "male nature" and starts a serial rape spree.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | June 16, 2011 10:35 AM

Why do I feel like Adams' notion of what's "natural" comes from this guy?

Posted by: Ray Moscow | June 16, 2011 10:43 AM

Adams:

Powerful men have been behaving badly, e.g. tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive to just about everyone in the entire world.

OK, he's conflating "tweeting" and "raping" as though they were even remotely the same sort of action? What a loser.

Posted by: havlak | June 16, 2011 10:48 AM

The funny thing is, some of most sexually active and playful creatures on the planet are our cousins the bonobos.

In whose society the females pretty much dominate the sexual decisions, and gang up to stomp on violent males, hard.

Let's face it: in extremely male-dominated human societies, the powerful men don't only enslave and abuse women, they also monopolize access to females. Most guys are left out in the cold.

Your average man being anti-feminist is like your average worker being anti-socialist.

Posted by: Zeno | June 16, 2011 10:53 AM

I guess Adams won't use "Don't blame men! Blame evolution!" since he doesn't really believe in it. I guess "nature" is a safe dodge for him.

I usually enjoy reading "Dilbert," but Adams diminishes my enjoyment whenever he insists on saying stupid things. I feel oppressed! But I guess Adams can't help himself.

Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies! | June 16, 2011 10:53 AM

@GunboatDiplomat
#22

Playing Call of Duty does not make me want to take a sniper rifle up to the nearest high building to make head explode like watermelons

Ah, you're one of them f***ing campers.

@informania
#23

I always feel a 'natural' urge to slap any rapists face off.

I don't know, slapping seemed like a fairly difficult way to remove someone's face.
Try using a cheese graters.

Posted by: Rick Miller | June 16, 2011 10:56 AM

For years I have suspected that Scott Adams is a psychopath.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | June 16, 2011 10:59 AM

@mageduley - That video was awesome. Now, do we have to kill off half the male population to achieve a better society, or can we do it simply through education?

Posted by: Thomathy | June 16, 2011 11:04 AM

Scott Adams; Disturbing Creep

Posted by: latsot | June 16, 2011 11:06 AM

Adams has a tendency to simplify situations until his arguments seem to fit. This is a little bit like when we make simplifying assumptions in science except that he just keeps *ahem* 'simplifying' away until his preconceived arguments seem to fit, never describes his assumptions or demonstrates that they're reasonable and never analyses what happens if the assumptions are relaxed.

Not *very* much like when we make simplifying assumptions in science....

It's a rhetorical device he seems fond of and he's used it to good comedic effect in the past. It's at the heart of what a lot of comedians do.

Unfortunately, he seems to have started believing his sock-puppets' testimony and think he's seeing to the crystal heart of complex issues when in fact he's talking wank.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | June 16, 2011 11:13 AM

I hate hate hate the fucking "nature" argument.

Not only does it excuse violent rapey behavior, it lessens the horrors of the victim's experience, and it assumes that men can only think with their cocks. Three wrongs make a right, somehow?

Poor little Scotty. I get the impression that he doesn't find his sex life all that satisfying.

I should hope not.

Posted by: Discombob | June 16, 2011 11:15 AM

I'm curious- do folks here believe in free will? If so, on what basis?

Posted by: oihorse | June 16, 2011 11:18 AM

Wow, that article and its author are just fucked in the head.

Posted by: Gadfly47 | June 16, 2011 11:24 AM

Spamamander
I read most of the Gor books in my youth. I ended up skipping paragraphs and sometimes entire pages of Norman's weird ramblings just to get to a fight scene, or a sex scene. It seems to me the guys who actually subscribe to this "women as sex slaves" mentality are pretty pathetic. They can't attract a woman so they yearn for a world where women have no choice.

Posted by: wlynn | June 16, 2011 11:26 AM

A similar piece of ass-hattery:

http://nymag.com/relationships/sex/47055/

More absurd arguments about men not being able to help acting like sociopathic sex-bots. I have higher expectations.

Posted by: Equisetum | June 16, 2011 11:29 AM

@38:

t minus 15 seconds until he is "just joking" and we just don't get what he means. /eyeroll

No. First come the sock puppets.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | June 16, 2011 11:31 AM

It's a good thing men aren't as Scott Adams think they are, otherwise it'd be a good argument for killing them all except for a few, freezing their sperm, and moving humanity forward from there.

Posted by: Maverick | June 16, 2011 11:39 AM

Well, he's somewhat right. For the few outliers that are strongly inclined for some of these behaviors (especially rape), some have found that chemical castration is the answer. I recall a news story about two Israeli's who were pedophiles, and couldn't fix the condition through therapy. They wound up taking chemical castration drugs to ensure they wouldn't harm any children.

Posted by: Tualha | June 16, 2011 11:40 AM

Cross-posting my dilbert.com comments:

Wow. This is so braindead, where do I start?

Sure, evolution has set things up so that men have incentives to breed everywhere they can, while women have incentives to settle into stable relationships. So what? First off, we aren't mindless animals, slaves to what our genes tell us to do. We also have social customs, and those are quite capable of overriding biological imperatives, in and out of bed. Lots of men manage to stay faithful to their partners in spite of temptation. It's called self-control.

On the other side of the coin, if a man in modern Western civilization doesn't want to be bothered with monogamy, he doesn't have to be. There are plenty of alternatives.

The problem with DSK, and Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich and John Edwards and Arnie and Ted Haggard and many others of their ilk, is not that they had unfulfilled desires, but that they were in powerful positions that demanded a certain level of public probity and they thought they could have it both ways. They publicly pretended to be virtuous and faithful, while in private they acted like swinging playboys. And, inevitably, they got caught. Being powerful, naturally they often managed to avoid it for a while with their power and connections; which only served to tempt them to greater excesses, until finally they couldn't cover things up anymore. One of DSK's would-be victims finally spoke out. Gingrich hasn't suffered much for his indiscretions, but he'll never be president.

I think the solution to this is not to offer men chemical castration to keep their urges under control, but instead to have no tolerance and no secrecy for inappropriate actions. Governor Clinton is chasing women around? Put it on page one of every newspaper and let the voters decide if they want him to be president. DSK attacks women? Charge him with it the first time it happens, not the 15th. Ted Haggard wants to hire you as a rent boy? Take his money and sell your story to the National Enquirer. If some men want to play around, fine, but if they're public figures, let the public know what they're doing. And if they commit crimes, treat them just the same as the guy who hides behind the bushes in the park with a knife.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | June 16, 2011 11:42 AM

I'd go so far as to say that I'd have to be forced to rape, would probably find myself physically incapable of the act, and would find violent assault to be incredibly unnatural.

Is anyone else having flashbacks to that scene in Se7en?

No? Just me?

Stop laughing so hard! I see you out there with my magic blog-o-vision, goggling unbelievingly at the very idea that women are unconstrained by societal conventions.

I would be laughing, if it weren't so fucking sad.

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | June 16, 2011 11:47 AM

tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive

Exactly how the fuck is tweeting a natural fucking instinct for men?

Furthermore, women cheat pretty damn regularly, so it's not just men who have the drive towards polyamory. Incidentally, I believe they also have twitter accounts sometimes. Some of us little fuckers even manage to be offensive on occasion.

This goes back to the concept that only men are people and women are some strange other.

Posted by: Samantha | June 16, 2011 11:58 AM

re Tualha @#61:

Sure, evolution has set things up so that men have incentives to breed everywhere they can, while women have incentives to settle into stable relationships.

Can we even be sure this is really what "evolution has set things up" to be? I mean, if you think about it, men should want to ensure that their offspring are raised to succeed as much as women and women should want to have as many offspring as possible as much as men, if we're talking purely about passing on the torch of humanity. In reality, what evolution likely predisposes us to the most is a communal village living where everyone mates with everyone else and parents the children as a group. Of course, it's difficult to prove but I think it makes more sense than this nonsense about how women must want a monogamous, stable relationship while men must want to spread their seed and have no ties to the resulting children.

If we take that view of our evolutionary instincts, Adams' screed seems even more nonsensical. Indeed, men and women should (in this theory) have essentially the same basic instincts, with the dominant instinct being determined by the current situation (around their child, around a fertile member of the opposite sex, around a threat, etc). Sure, there will be minor differences because of base physicality (i.e. women will be slightly more likely to flight responses over fight ones because they are on average smaller and thus less likely to prevail in fights overall) but these are minimal variances at best. Of course, this still doesn't take into account intelligent thought and choice, which are at least as important to our reactions as our instincts are.

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | June 16, 2011 12:03 PM

What Brownian and Samantha said. That stupid argument only holds any fucking water if women never "cheated". But we do. A whole lot.

I really wish people would stop pretending that our sexual behavior doesn't exist by claiming that it's "natural" for men to do it while completely ignoring the fact that women also do it. Is it only natural for the d00dz? WTF.

Posted by: cicely (Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniac) | June 16, 2011 12:10 PM

It sounds bad, but I suspect that if a man loses his urge for sex, he also doesn't miss it.

Which explains why Veyeagra sells so well! </snark>
-

One million Internet dollars says that when this blows up in Adams' face, he'll claim he was trolling, issue a notpology and dig himself deeper.

That does seem to be his M.O. "It was all a joke! Y'll just don't have a sense of humor!"
-

I think Mr. Certified Genius really is just doing it for the page hits.

I agree.
-

It's a good thing men aren't as Scott Adams think they are, otherwise it'd be a good argument for killing them all except for a few, freezing their sperm, and moving humanity forward from there.

Good idea, but get their sperm first. Then kill 'em. All of 'em. Good thing there are so many wigglers per serving; we won't need to engender any more males for a long time, and when we do, we'll get the whip hand over the little fuckers from the git-go.
-

Posted by: Samantha | June 16, 2011 12:11 PM

beatrice:

Of course, if Adams makes a follow up post, he will probably claim that the reshaping of society that started with emancipation of women is at fault for the current sad state of manly urges. *eye roll*

The stupid, sad fact of the matter is that is actually the case. Before women were treated like the human beings they actually are, it wasn't a big deal for men to rape, cheat and do whatever their "urges" told them to do. Of course, the utter messed-upness of that situation never seems to get mentioned because the MRAs are too busy crying about how they now have to treat women (and people of other races and social classes and ability levels and and and...) like living, breathing, thinking, feeling humans. How horrible life is for them.

Posted by: gex | June 16, 2011 12:17 PM

The thing that really stands out to me is this idea that men have a much stronger drive than women. Perhaps. But of all my straight lady friends get less than they want from their guys who are mainly enjoying beer and video games instead.

I don't know if the differential in drive is as pronounced as popular culture would have you believe. I think a certain amount of it is exaggeration by males who think that wanting to fuck everything that moves makes them manly.

Posted by: Sven DiMilo | June 16, 2011 12:18 PM

I hate hate hate the fucking "nature" argument. Not only does it excuse violent rapey behavior, it lessens the horrors of the victim's experience, and it assumes that men can only think with their cocks.

Yeah. Well I bet your pithy little restatement of what you already know to be the local consensus will garner a lot more right-ons than arguments around here. [No doubt that was, in fact, your reason for posting such a Waltonesque comment.]

Nevertheless, without actually endorsing or arguing for any particular "'nature' argument", [please re-read introductory clause], I feel compelled to point out that it's purest bullshit.

it excuse[s] violent rapey behavior

No, of course it doesn't. It really does not.
It's unclear to me whether this is an argument-from-stupid-consequences (i.e. concern that such a "fucking 'nature' argument" will or would be used by political opponents for nefarious purposes), a patriarchy-conspiracy theory, or an actual irrational leap from is to ought, but whatever way it's wrong.
What 'it'--the otherwise unspecified "fucking 'nature' argument"--does is attempt to work toward a reality-based causal/mechanistic explanation of such behavior. Science. That's all.
To deny the biological (neurological, neurochemical, developmental, endocrine, genetic, and ultimately evolutionary) contributions to any animal (even human) behavior is to be a science denialist of near-creationist blinkeredness. And of course the closer the link between a behavior and reproduction, the stronger the likely evolutionary contribution (implemented by whatever proximate mechanism).

(Please note before tarring me with the phrase 'determinism' that I am not guilty of that opposite fallacy; the reality-based causal/mechanistic explanation of human (and, depending on the animal, animal) behavior will always be influenced by, and in individual cases trumped by, the (biological) capacity for cultural plasticity. See? Both.)

I honestly don't see anybody around here who is trying, even subconsciously, to 'excuse violent rapey behavior'. Just seems to me that if minimizing the incidence of such behavior is a goal, you might want to understand its origins and genesises, and I don't understand why, to some, perceived ideological purity is seemingly more important than that. *shrug*

Anyway, it should go without saying, but here I'll say it anyway, that we know that in humans cultural conditioning can be, and often is, strong enough to override whatever non-nurtural causal factors might exist, and so that's why nobody actually thinks (do they? do you?) that even a (hypothetically) strongly evidenced genetic component to the proclivity for violent rapey behavior would in any way constitute an 'excuse' for acting out such behavior.
Right? Greed and theft.

it lessens the horrors of the victim's experience

What? Rather, wut?
How?
To whom?
This assertion is so completely irrational that again the charitable interpretation is that it's meant as an argument-from-stupid-consequences. Is that it?

it assumes that men can only think with their cocks

Assumes?
Men seemingly 'thinking with their cocks' is an empirical observation [ref: often the entire freaking mainstream media all day freaking long].
Your straw-"fucking 'nature' argument" is or would be a (naively simplistic) hypothesis proposed to explain such observations (is), not an assumption erected to excuse them (ought).
So, wrong again.

eh what's the point
here have at it

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | June 16, 2011 12:21 PM

@Samantha,

My mistake, I started with an assumption that treating women as humans is a good thing. It's difficult to try and think the way a piece of troll shit like S. Adams thinks.

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | June 16, 2011 12:27 PM

Men seemingly 'thinking with their cocks' is an empirical observation [ref: often the entire freaking mainstream media all day freaking long].

Well, to be fair, most sexual creatures tend to do a helluva lot of thinking with their reproductive bits. Sorta how that works, y'know? I think the argument is that men are not as blinded by this impulse as Adams is suggesting.

I've succumbed* to overwhelming sexual urges before, but I've never raped anyone. And it's not really because I had to reason my way out of it. It's because it is inherently repugnant to me to take over another person's body without permission.

*Pun fully intended.

Posted by: Jules, Bride of Death | June 16, 2011 12:32 PM

If we want to go all evo-psych-y, the best fit might be that bisexuality is the "intended natural norm"; same-sex attraction for the group-binding aspects, other-sex for group-binding plus the continuation of the species. And everyone alloparents everyone in the groups' offspring because they could be theirs, someone in their kin-group's, or the offspring of a *ahem* really close, really personal friend.

*gets faraway, wistful look in her eyes*

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | June 16, 2011 12:37 PM

I honestly don't see anybody around here who is trying, even subconsciously, to 'excuse violent rapey behavior'.

That's because you've got a blind spot the size of Montana when it comes to issues involving sexism.

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | June 16, 2011 12:39 PM

If we want to go all evo-psych-y, the best fit might be that bisexuality is the "intended natural norm"; same-sex attraction for the group-binding aspects, other-sex for group-binding plus the continuation of the species.

It's a bit off topic, but that's my personal theory. Bisexuality is the "natural state", but it's sort of a sliding scale where you can be more often attracted to one sex or the other, with homosexuality and heterosexuality as states where attraction to a single sex is predominant. Sorry for the OT.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 12:43 PM

Sven is being a self-indulgent, inane, sexist dickwad, again

I'm curious- do folks here believe in free will? If so, on what basis?

The difference between any free will that could exist in our universe and the illusion of free will is indiscernible and irrelevant.

Posted by: Ganner | June 16, 2011 12:47 PM

I read that earlier and found it, along with some of his other posts I read, offensive. Offensive to the women he seems to look down on, and personally as a man who doesn't like being characterized as a brute and a slave to my base desires.

This view of men and women that Adams and too many "angry white male" conservative types have (along with a sad number of women as well) is just offensive to everyone involved. It's also lazy, cynical, and destructive. Rather than embrace what true differences there may be between men and women (and the massive differences within the genders), understand each other as best as is possible, and work together with all males, females, transgenders, etc. to have a positive society, they just cynically say "eh shit sucks woe is me don't them wimmuns/men suck eh?"

Posted by: meyvnheart | June 16, 2011 12:48 PM

Grahame: the problem is the association of those behaviors. Serious, informed, intelligent people do not denigrate logic. In fact, scientifically speaking, reference to "reason" and "emotion" as separate things is plain nonsense; they are the same brain function. When people separate them in conversation, what they're really doing is making excuses and apologetics for bad decision-making.

Re: "protective," no one actually criticizes that. What they do criticize is attitudes of ownership, possessiveness and entitlement in sexual partners, that sometimes people mask by claiming they're BEING protective. This behavior might be more common in men (and in fact, I'm not sure that it is, I think it may be that it just manifests in more obvious ways), but it's universally bad, and universally a problem.

As far as competition/cooperation, are you serious? Do you realize how much money professional sports makes, and how much attention it gets?

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 12:52 PM

Considering how much Sven hate the topic and everyone here it's amazing how he'll predictably jump in with the same dick wagging every single time.

Posted by: meyvnheart | June 16, 2011 12:53 PM

Side note: anyone know if Scott Adams is a self-described MRA? Because that would make a lot of sense.

Posted by: meyvnheart | June 16, 2011 12:56 PM

Competition is downplayed and denigrated? When did that start? Last time I checked, I was living in a country that worships the invisible hand of the free market like a god. Competition is the mighty determiner of the worthiness of all things, from elementary school test scores to sports stars' salaries to multinational corporations' quarterly profit reports.

But don't you see! It's not enough for the culture as a whole to worship competition and "manliness." The intelligentsia must also drink of the nectar for men to feel sufficiently validated.

Posted by: Tualha | June 16, 2011 12:59 PM

Samantha @61 and Dhorvath @86:

Um, I'm under the impression this is a fairly basic, non-controversial position in evolutionary theory. In many (most?) species, males contribute far less to reproduction (and rearing, when applicable) than females do; hence optimal male strategy is to spread the seed far and wide, while optimal female strategy is to only mate with alpha males (for the good genes) and males who will help with rearing, when applicable. Not as true for humans, due to the need for extensive rearing, but it still applies to a fair extent. For citations, I'm pretty sure Why Evolution is True covers this, and I recall seeing it somewhere in Dawkins too - Selfish Gene, I think, but I'm not sure.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 16, 2011 1:06 PM

From that New York article.

“Porn captures these women [its performers] before they get smart,” he said in a hot whisper as we sat in Schiller’s Liquor Bar on the Lower East Side. Porn exploited the sexual desires, and naïveté, of women in their early twenties, he went on, but older women had come to terms with that. “The most one can expect is that women will cede that area, in porn, a period when you can observe us before we have power, because it ain’t going to happen again.” He spoke of acts he observed online that his wife wouldn’t do. “It’s painful to say, but that’s your boys’ night out, and it takes an enlightened woman to say that.”

What the hell? My partner has power, she has intelligence, she knows what we are doing and doesn't feel obligated to do so nor shamed by our actions. I'm saddened that society has blinded that couple (and countless others, no doubt) to the ways that they could relate while enforcing an idea that they need to stay together despite their compatibility issues. And then for that ass to lump it all and say it's normal for that to happen and the work around is to take advantage of women before they know better. Gah, that's sickening.

Posted by: Richard Austin | June 16, 2011 1:09 PM

Beatrice:

But how can you determine what is "natural" behavior and what is only thought as natural because it has been associated with men for centuries? You can assume that it has been associated with men precisely because it's natural to them, but I don't think we can determine what is a leftover from centuries of patriarchy and what is truly ingrained. I tend to think that most of it is the result of the former.

I'm actually leaning towards the following:

1) Society (and, in particular, the education system as it currently stands) is pressuring/forcing people (and especially kids) into a role of docile/submissive/compliant/"stay between the lines or suffer the consequences" sort of behavior.

2) Society (at least western society) has long forced women into this behavior.

Ergo, the appearance is that society is trying to turn "boys" into "girls", when really it's just trying to make everyone be submissive/passive instead of just making women that way.

And yes, these are broad generalizations and there are exceptions - but I do think the trend from "the top" is more towards "fit into what we think you should be" than it has been in the past, largely because of population density but also as understanding of psychology has grown and, therefore, can be more easily mis-used. Progressive ideology is, generally speaking, trying to negate that trend.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 1:10 PM

From the evolutionary Psychology course I took, the idea was that genetics is a numbers game. You can "win" through some non obvious ways. The prof cited, for example that it can be a better strategy to NOT reproduce yourself and instead help a siblings offspring. It maximizes the chance that 1/4 of your genetics is passed on, where taking the gamble at 1/2 with your own offspring in this instance is a worse bet.

It's this sort of strategy that allows wolf packs, kingfishers, and bees.

Posted by: meyvnheart | June 16, 2011 1:12 PM

And then for that ass to lump it all and say it's normal for that to happen and the work around is to take advantage of women before they know better. Gah, that's sickening.

Unfortunately, projections and generalizations are rampant. Being stupid and lazy intellectually is just much easier.

Posted by: MudPuddles | June 16, 2011 1:14 PM

I remember a discussion here a little while ago where people tried to convince me that rape was normal, and in fact was "within the norms of empathetic thought". Seems its not so much the horrendous acts described in PZ's post that are normal, so much as the belief that they are natural is ubiquitous.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 1:15 PM

One has to wonder how rampant rape and sociopathic behavior would be selected FOR in a social animal?

I mean...just by the fact that your victim is likely to abort or kill your child out of spite or that their allies will gang up against you...or that you'd rampantly reproduce and cause an overpopulation problem.

Posted by: Brownian | June 16, 2011 1:17 PM

The whole cheating* is for men idea cracks me up. Who are they cheating with?

The same people among whom Cain and Abel found wives, I think.

m, I'm under the impression this is a fairly basic, non-controversial position in evolutionary theory. In many (most?) species, males contribute far less to reproduction (and rearing, when applicable) than females do; hence optimal male strategy is to spread the seed far and wide, while optimal female strategy is to only mate with alpha males (for the good genes) and males who will help with rearing, when applicable. Not as true for humans, due to the need for extensive rearing, but it still applies to a fair extent.

What's a 'fair extent'? One can make all the arguments one wants for optimal strategies for mosquitoes, but it's pretty telling that both males and females of our closet related living species are promiscuous.

Sven doesn't like to talk about sexism, but he always has something to say when there's a post up involving sexism.

Well, PZ just posts these sorts of things for the pageranks anyway...

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | June 16, 2011 1:19 PM

One has to wonder how rampant rape and sociopathic behavior would be selected FOR in a social animal?

Ducks are not social animals, right?

Interestingly, in this article it mentions that for years scientists studied duck phalluses, and wondered why they had them and why they were so long. It took a woman to wonder, "What about the female duck's reproductive anatomy?"

Blind spots.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 16, 2011 1:23 PM

Xpodyncow,
Your parents had sex too. What's the big deal?

When you make it seem like something that should be hidden you are contributing to the idea that sex is bad or dirty. This idea reinforces the very shit that Adams is putting forwards.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 1:25 PM

Ducks are not social animals, right?

Interestingly, in this article it mentions that for years scientists studied duck phalluses, and wondered why they had them and why they were so long. It took a woman to wonder, "What about the female duck's reproductive anatomy?"

Blind spots.

Not to the extend of humans.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | June 16, 2011 1:28 PM

In each of our cases, they make our homes, manage our social calendar, bind up our wounds and finish our thoughts, and are stitched into our extended families more intimately than we are.

Ah yes, men as children. How fucking endearing.

Also has a creepy Leave It To Beaver vibe. Women run the house! Men don't know how to run a vacuum cleaner! Hilarity ensues!

I am so sick of this trope.

Posted by: Xplodyncow | June 16, 2011 1:37 PM

Dhorvath, OM, I agree with you. My comment wasn't so much “sex is icky” but more “damn kids say the damnedest things.”

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 16, 2011 1:39 PM

Gotcha. Sorry for misunderstanding.

Posted by: OpenMindedSkeptic | June 16, 2011 1:41 PM

Yeah, Scott Adams is an idiot. But, dang, the "Can I have a cookie?" impulse has been strong in PZ lately.

"I went to a porn shop -- but only for the sf novels! Can I have a cookie?"

"I have never had any violent thought toward any woman. Can I have a cookie?"

"I have never had a desire to have sex with any woman other than my wife. Can I have a cookie?"

"Anything about myself that distinguishes me from the better sex I absolutely loathe. I wish I could cut off my penis, but I only have the courage to cut off my balls. Can I have a cookie?"

Yeah, yeah, we get it, PZ. You can have all the cookies you want. You deserve them. Also, you can get up now.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 16, 2011 1:43 PM

Surprised the Mike Adams fanbois / sockpuppets haven't shown up yet.

Posted by: A Bad Idea (♀) | June 16, 2011 1:46 PM

Oh, I forgot to say in my first comment, I'm not even sure what "natural urges" women have that they don't need to repress in our society. Is he thinking of, like, crying? Because that doesn't work as well as he thinks, if so.

Funnily enough: I hit people (well, only guys) all the time. I hit them as hard as I can. I slap and punch and pull their hair. The difference is, I can't do it hard enough to HURT any of them, and we all know it, and hence no-one considers me "violent." So I don't think the violence difference is as big between men/women as we think, it's just that if my protohusband were to act as I do, he'd hospitalize someone... whereas people just giggle at me.

I should clarify that I've only ever hit my larger male friends. It's affectionate bonding. ;D

Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy | June 16, 2011 1:50 PM

OpenmindedSkeptic: I'm deeply sorry that your male ego is so fragile.

Posted by: meyvnheart | June 16, 2011 1:55 PM

@Giliell,

re: Rep. Weiner, I think the biggest problem with what happened was that he fueled the scandal with his lies and efforts to cover up the truth. He should've said, in the very beginning, something like:

"Yep. That was me. I cheated on my wife via the internet. It was stupid. It was especially stupid to do so on my public Twitter account. I'm sorry for the media time I've wasted, distracting from the important issues I myself swore to defend and promote. But I'm especially sorry to my wife and family, the people this ultimately hurt the most."

If he'd just said that, it wouldn't have been such a goddamned nightmare. That's when it became a "-gate," not because he made a mistake but because he lied about it and did his best to cover it up, fueling an idiotic media frenzy.

Posted by: jmorgan1234533 | June 16, 2011 2:15 PM

Sven de Milo @ #77

Well I bet your pithy little restatement of what you already know to be the local consensus will garner a lot more right-ons than arguments around here.

It will indeed, because it invokes a major taboo among certain 'Pharyngulistas'. Only go there if you enjoy rattling the bars of their self-imposed cages.

Posted by: Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes | June 16, 2011 2:21 PM

@meyvnheart
It's still nothing that I suppose would make much of a scandal over here. It's a vicious circle: The USA being prudishly obsessed with sex and genitals, everybody knows everybody else does it but still they all act as if nobody ever heard of such a thing, but when an affair, cheating, stupid twitter-conversation comes to light it's the first time those things happen every time. No wonder people then try to cover it up and lie.
Do you really think it would not have been a big thing if he hadn't lied about it?
Ehm, no, no pun intended.

Posted by: Randomfactor | June 16, 2011 2:26 PM

Besides, anyone who REALLY knows PZ knows he's more interested in crackers than cookies.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 2:28 PM

It seems like a massive projection

"I only say things to earn favor from saps therefore..."

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 16, 2011 2:32 PM

A Bad Idea,
I get that. Really. I love being that guy and it works for my wife and I to play on that theme. It is problematic though, some people see our interaction as an invitation to do the same, but they don't understand that there is a consensual agreement already in place. Likewise, I hug some people, but not all of them, I kiss some people, but not all of them, and so on. The first rule of contact is never assume, it's still fun if you have permission.
___

OpenMindedSkeptic,

"I went to a porn shop -- but only for the sf novels! Can I have a cookie?"

Missing the bit where he detailed the experience of looking at the more general wares including details about stock and print quality.

"I have never had any violent thought toward any woman. Can I have a cookie?"

So you do? And it bothers you that others don't? Or is it just when someone says so out loud? If there is no example set that violence is a poor social route how can we expect any progress on getting rid of it?

"I have never had a desire to have sex with any woman other than my wife. Can I have a cookie?"

Are you disputing his self characterization? Do you know better what happens in his head? Or is it just that you think he is setting that up as the ideal? It may surprise you that several of the regulars here have non-mongamous relationships and they get cookies too. We are pretty easy going that way.

"Anything about myself that distinguishes me from the better sex I absolutely loathe. I wish I could cut off my penis, but I only have the courage to cut off my balls. Can I have a cookie?"

How is it unhealthy to strive for better? And where has PZ divorced himself from being male?

Posted by: Vicki, Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief | June 16, 2011 2:50 PM

When I thought Weiner had sent those pictures to a woman (or women) who wanted them, I figured that was between them and maybe his wife.

The issue as far as I'm concerned isn't "fidelity" (I have no idea of the terms of Weiner's marriage, and in any case that's at most an issue for a divorce court), it's consent, or rather, the lack of same.

And yes, I know that this is being used by a lot of people who would be just as upset if Weiner had been tweeting such photos only to women who had explicitly requested them.

The double standard question is twofold. One is, how fast would this have come apart if a Congresswoman sent similar pictures to people who didn't want them? The other is, of course, what if a Republican did the same thing? I'm just not convinced that "someone else would get away with this" is adequate reason to overlook the matter this time: once you accept that, nothing can change because there's always a previous time in which someone got away with it.

"Is it that serious?" is a separate question. (Not that it matters at this point, but I don't live in that district, I live in one where my neighbors have shown a great willingness to reelect someone after a non-sexual scandal.)

Posted by: ecurve | June 16, 2011 3:02 PM

@126:

Must be feminist indoctrination that makes me like sex.

Must be equal and opposite from the feminist indoctrination that I got* that makes me not desire sex or relationships, thereby depriving some deserving man of **** and household help.

Damn feminists! Their indoctrination is extremely thorough!

* I'm aromantic asexual

Posted by: flyonthewall | June 16, 2011 3:24 PM

So this assclown is under the delusion that throughout time a woman's permiscuity has been treated with the same reverence and respect as a man's?

Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right | June 16, 2011 3:31 PM

It's the old double standard: men get extra credit for behaving themselves even marginally, while women get less because "being good" is natural to them. This was dissected, oh, a hundred years ago.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 3:40 PM

It's such a shame how Charlie Sheen's career has been destroyed

Posted by: skeptifem | June 16, 2011 3:41 PM

This is why it makes me laugh to be called a man-hater for my feminism. I think you all have the ability to behave humanely towards women and children. Men who think they are naturally pieces of shit are pro-male though? Bah.

I came here today because I don't believe that rape is inevitable or natural. If I did, I would have no reason to be here. If I did, my political practice would be different than it is. Have you ever wondered why we are not just in armed combat against you? It's not because there's a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.

-Andrea Dworkin, I want a Twenty Four Hour Truce During Which There is No Rape

Posted by: Athenian | June 16, 2011 3:47 PM

skeptifem #159 wrote:

This is why it makes me laugh to be called a man-hater for my feminism.

What, you mean you can appreciate one gender without hating the other? Impossible!

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 3:51 PM

@Tis

I agree ya bastard!

Posted by: MGolz | June 16, 2011 4:05 PM

This is pathetic and disturbing.

Being home from college yields one unfortunate circumstance; I hear a lot of Rush Limbaugh because my father rather enjoys his talk show. The other day, he was talking about liberal feminists, and how they were solely responsible for the immoral behavior or recent politicians (Wiener, ergo) because they asserted that women were inherently more moral than men.

Of course, being a liberal female with many feminist friends, I was offended. However, I also disregarded it because it's hard for me to believe a significant portion of the population actually believed the nonsense.

However, it would be nice if people would look at the unethical nature of these behaviors rather than trying to make a far-fetched conclusion about a "collective".

It just proves that people often make shallow, superficial assumptions about something that is very complex.

Posted by: skeptifem | June 16, 2011 4:09 PM

re: Rep. Weiner, I think the biggest problem with what happened was that he fueled the scandal with his lies and efforts to cover up the truth. He should've said, in the very beginning, something like:

"Yep. That was me. I cheated on my wife via the internet. It was stupid. It was especially stupid to do so on my public Twitter account. I'm sorry for the media time I've wasted, distracting from the important issues I myself swore to defend and promote. But I'm especially sorry to my wife and family, the people this ultimately hurt the most."

If he'd just said that, it wouldn't have been such a goddamned nightmare.

Oh bullshit. Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal to conservative dudes, but for women it should matter a lot even if he said that. Did you see the kind of shit he said to women? He wants them to gag and choke on dicks. That arouses him. Did you get the part where she would be trying to escape because of how hard he is going to bang her? The lack of analysis about the content of the things he sent is alarming to me. People are analyzing unsolicited dick pictures and violent sexual fantasies like they aren't problematic at all when they come from a lawmaker (showing your dick unsolicited WITHOUT the internet is called FLASHING, but hey LOL no one cares that it is essentially the same thing when sent on a computer!). This post is one of the best about the whole thing:

http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2011/06/11/there-is-more-than-one-dick-implicated-in-the-weiner-scandal/

He never asks her what might turn her on, but rather inundates her with information about the state of his penis, informing her of exactly what physical and emotional response she will have to it. That, the insipidness and lack of imagination that characterize his sexual fantasies, and his lack of consideration for Cordova’s boundaries or Weiss’s feelings about whether or not she’d like to be “gagged” during a sexual encounter hint to me that Mr. Weiner might just be a porn user. In porn, dicks reign supreme, and women pretend to fall all over themselves for the purported pleasure of gagging on and being aggressively penetrated by them. They aren’t interested in intimacy, whether emotional or physical, and they have no desires of their own that don’t align perfectly with those of men who are enthralled by nothing more than their own wangs.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 4:12 PM

"I'm just acting according to my nature"

Oddly no one respects NAMBLA's use of this defense.

Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies! | June 16, 2011 4:15 PM

@Audley
#166
Your profane speech pleases me.

Posted by: C. Mason taylor | June 16, 2011 4:16 PM

Oh bullshit. Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal to conservative dudes, but for women it should matter a lot even if he said that. Did you see the kind of shit he said to women? He wants them to gag and choke on dicks. That arouses him. Did you get the part where she would be trying to escape because of how hard he is going to bang her? The lack of analysis about the content of the things he sent is alarming to me. People are analyzing unsolicited dick pictures and violent sexual fantasies like they aren't problematic at all when they come from a lawmaker (showing your dick unsolicited WITHOUT the internet is called FLASHING, but hey LOL no one cares that it is essentially the same thing when sent on a computer!). This post is one of the best about the whole thing:

My deepest apologies. At that time, I did not realize any of his communications were unsolicited. That crosses a line that's well beyond disgusting, and into the sexually violent. I withdraw my earlier comments.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | June 16, 2011 4:24 PM

'Tis,

Audley, will you marry me? Or my horse?

I would, but I am just too damned lazy to divorce Mr Darkheart. :P

Although, if you were to throw the horse in the deal...

... Nope, squicked myself out with that one.

Posted by: cicely (Inadvertent Phytocidal Maniac) | June 16, 2011 4:31 PM

Fuck you too, 'Tis and the horse you rode in on!

Audley, will you marry me? Or my horse?

Men and horses, living together....mass hysteria!
-

Don't do it! His horse has been known to wander!

Of course it has! It's only obeying the imperatives of its nature, as a Creature of Darkest Evil. How can you blame the poor hellfiend for that?
-

Posted by: Harmless Eccentric | June 16, 2011 4:33 PM

Regarding being a man-hater: I used to be a fundamentalist Christian. Now I'm a lesbian atheist. I hear a LOT less man-hating comments now than I used to. No lesbian I've ever met talks as nasty about men as the wives who are graciously submitting to them.

Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu | June 16, 2011 4:37 PM

The Horse, a Creature of Darkest Evil, is one of my minions. You'll have to ask me for its hand in marriage if you want this thing to work. Also I expect a large dowry to be supplied, in the form of booze.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 5:01 PM

Or hell make you his mare

Posted by: Randomfactor | June 16, 2011 5:20 PM

OT/OK, so I'm an evil male for posting this, but it LOOKS legit:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004042/Naked-female-scientist-tries-tame-beluga-whales-arctic.html

Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies! | June 16, 2011 5:55 PM

@Dhorvath
#184

Ponies, eh?

Yes. And your point?

Posted by: TimKO,,.,, | June 16, 2011 6:20 PM

I love it.

"Tweeting and Raping" is the new "Tide goes in tide goes out".

Posted by: ejay | June 16, 2011 7:21 PM

Um, did anybody notice Scott Adams had this categorized as "general nonsense"? He seems to enjoy lobbing these zingers occasionally, just to see what the reaction will be. He's probably laughing his round hole off right now.

Posted by: A Bad Idea (♀) | June 16, 2011 7:29 PM

ejay: Scott Adams has an established history of speaking his mind, and then *lying* and saying it was a joke when everyone tells him that he's sick and twisted. That is, when he's not busy making anonymous accounts to defend himself in the third person.

Posted by: zoologica | June 16, 2011 7:30 PM

Frankly, Adams has revealed a lot about his mindset when he sees rape and sexual harassment as a big problem for men. Being raped is a severe trauma, especially since rape victims are often blamed for what happened, but Adams just thinks it's a shame that the poor rapist is blamed. Boo hoo, poor rapists, only acting out their biological urges.

Ugh. What a complete, misogynist asshole. The ridiculous lion/zebra analogy should offend both men and women.

Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies | June 16, 2011 7:35 PM

Mattir:

Thanks a fucking lot for that image. That was one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen and now it'll be a couple days before it fades back into the neural bandwidth.

Sorry! That is one of the very very few scenes of any movie that I absolutely cannot watch a second time. So, of course, it immediately sprang to mind.

Posted by: A Bad Idea (♀) | June 16, 2011 7:40 PM

Yahoomess 194: I see you're new to Scott Adams' recent hijinks. The man is an established liar who registers anonymous accounts to defend himself in the third person (sockpuppetry), retroactively pulls down blog posts when he can't take the heat, and gets really, REALLY angry at people who call him on his BS and berates them on his blog. He really thinks he is a genius who knows better than everyone else and can't fathom why we're so stupid as to disagree with him. The man is socially sick.

I love his comics. I really do. It just boggles me that someone who can write those can turn around and be the dysfunctional child that he clearly is. I haven't read any Dilbert since he published the claim that women who want equal pay for equal work are like autistic children who throw a hissy fit when they're prevented from hurting themselves by adults who know better. And no, I don't think he was "modestly proposing" at all. He really meant it. He still means it.

The key to a modest proposal is that everyone with half a brain can see the sublime satire. Adams is just a self-centered jerk suffering from an extreme case of white male entitlement.

Posted by: Samantha | June 16, 2011 7:45 PM

Monad:

If it's not too doing-someone's-research-for-them, does someone know a good source on how this has affected cultures over time?

I'm sure there's quite a few good sources out there. As a reference-librarian-in-training, I found a few, which may/may not be accessible through your nearest university library or purchasable (unfortunately, most of this is peer-reviewed journal article stuff, which is tough for those not in post-secondary school to access. Everything is cited APA format.

A discussion on the effect of rape on the night of marriage of pre 19thC Women:
Cryle, P. (2008). "“A Terrible Ordeal from Every Point of View”: (Not) Managing Female Sexuality on the Wedding Night". Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18(1), 44-64.

Study of how rape, patriarchy and colonialism collided in India, with some reference to how this effected the culture:
Kolsky, E. (2010). "‘The Body Evidencing the Crime’: Rape on Trial in Colonial India, 1860–1947." Gender and History, 22(1), 109-131.

A fairly good one on the intersection between patriarchy and racism and rape's role in that, admittedly a more recent example:
Berg, A. (2009). "Trauma and Testimony in Black Women's Civil Rights Memoirs: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, Warriors Don't Cry, and From the Mississippi Delta". Journal of Women's History, 21(3), 84-107.

An examination of Bolivian women's issues in the late 19th and early 20th Cs:
Gotkowitz, L. (2003). "Trading Insults: Honor, Violence, and the Gendered Culture of Commerce in Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1870s-1950s". Hispanic American Historical Review, 83(1), 83-118.

A really good study of rape and violence against women in early New York:
Moore, S.T. (2002). ""Justifiable Provocation": Violence Against Women in Essex County, New York, 1799-1860". Journal of Social History, 35(4), 889-918.

A discussion of a personal rape story (also brings in some Catholic horribleness):
Frink, S. (2009). "Women, the Family, and the Fate of the Nation in American Anti-Catholic Narratives, 1830-1860". Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18(2), 237-264.

Obviously, "Journal of the History of Sexuality", "Gender and History" and "Journal of Women's History" are likely to be fairly solid sources for further search if you can access them.

A very creepy (IMO) document from 1791 advising unmarried women how to keep others from falling into the path of "seduction" can be accessed from "Defining Gender, 1450-1910" (http://www.gender.amdigital.co.uk) under "Documents" then "Section 1" then the sixth item down.

You might also be able to access "British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries" (http://solomon.bwld.alexanderstreet.com), which might have personal, individual expreiences and effects.

I hope this helps at least show that there is a bit of study in the area. Unfortunately, academic journals are the best places for this information so you might not be able to actually read the articles (though I hope you can).

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 16, 2011 8:10 PM

I just don't see the point in getting offended at dumb jokes.

If that was what his history suggested, maybe.

While the castration bit "sounds" probable to be hyperbole, he might just be sneaking some actual truth in feeling in for the rest.

It's his M.O.

Posted by: slignot | June 16, 2011 8:13 PM

I have to say, while there have been a few people here buying into naturalistic fallacies for current socialized sexual norms for men and women, this threat has been pleasantly free of the sort of rape apologetics and privilege denial I'm used to seeing. We've managed not to call down the cough*menz*cough brigade and I'm happy.

I really do wish people taught consent early and often. I fell into the camp of initially only being disappointed by the lies Wiener put out, but once it became clear that these were unsolicited/unwanted contacts, it did change. Although it's not nearly as creepy coercive as what has emerged about the not-so-freely-consensual affair Ensign had. His former mistress may not be saying he raped her during their relationship (hell, she may not even think to consider partner rape in those terms), but several things really make me question whether she was enthusiastically consenting or if she felt she had to.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 8:18 PM

Sorry about the garbled username.

I'm not saying it was great satire, but it is pretty obviously satire. Does anyone think he seriously believes the future of reproduction is chemical castration punctuated by whacking off into a jar? Then isn't it reasonable to assume that he's not completely serious about the rest of it? And that it's probably just a clumsy attempt at reductio ad absurdum? I just don't see the point in getting offended at dumb jokes. Especially not jokes that actually agree with the exact impulse that caused offense.

Here's the thing. Satire has a point. what's the point of this? That men who whine about being oppressed are stupid? We know that's not Adam's stance. That women socially castrate men so much that literal castration can't be far behind?

Beck and Limbaugh allegedly do 'satire'...but their satire is at best an exaggerated example of what they really promote. You're missing the difference between something like Modest Proposal and that. What do you think Hunter S Thompson really loved Nixon and Regan and was just mocking their detractors?

Posted by: Pacal | June 16, 2011 8:29 PM

Scott Adams says:

The part that interests me is that society is organized in such a way that the natural instincts of men are shameful and criminal while the natural instincts of women are mostly legal and acceptable.

That statement is a lie. I just find it remarkable the sheer number of men who whine about wicked all powertful women / feminists. THe idea that women are not constrained is such idiocy. Mr.s should ask a women about walking in a city park alone at 3 in the morning if he thinks women arn't contrained.

Posted by: mistermuz | June 16, 2011 8:37 PM

Adams has kinda become a sort of mad prophet, spouting random and solipsistic pearls of wisdom in which he figures out the world from his cave on the mountain side.
For some reason this behaviour endears itself to people. "Oh he's wordy and insane. He must be right."

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 8:46 PM

Seriously?

Adams is starting to move into that sector of argument that is no longer pathetic, but actually genuinely frightening. I worry for any woman entering into a romantic or sexual relationship with him or anyone else who would defend these comments.

Powerful men have been behaving badly, e.g. tweeting, raping, cheating, and being offensive

One of these things is really not like one of the others.

Really, really, not like the others.

But on Planet Adams and to the personality of those who would seek to minimize attention to rape, apparently rape is just like cheating, rude language, or tweeting pictures of one's crotch.

Just "natural" bad behavior (and again, why do all rape apologists and anti-feminists keep trying to claim that rape and violence are endemic to the notion of being male*), bad because of its connection to unapproved sexuality oblivious to the very concept of consent.

The notions are so ludicrous and offensive that it's not really sad or humorous. As I say, I really hope whatever romantic partners he has in his life are able to escape before he "snaps" and decides to escalate whatever private actions he feels he needs to "justify publicly" to the PC hordes of his mind.

*This constant recurring defense seems absolutely non-sensical. Yes, if there was a recurring endemic natural inclination among half the population to rape and conquer, to beat and murder, to engage in blood-lust and the violation of consent, then in defense of people's right to their lives and liberty, we would be honor-bound to arrest and incarcerate a large overwhelming number of men for society's benefit.

In such a society, men could not be permitted to run anything, owing to their inability to handle a cooperative peaceful society. They couldn't even be trusted in war owing to their lack of restraint or self-control. In such a society, men would need to be restrained, detained, and separated and prevented from any access to power, public service, or even public contact.

Forget castration, that wouldn't solve the urge to violence, we'd have to lock them in cages like they were mindless beasts while women got on with their lives in peace.

And yet, this is the society that rape apologists consistently argue in favor of. No, no, you can't blame men for the rape culture or the culture of violence against women, those are just natural inclinations that to sever would sever what it means to be a man or human. It's like castrating our penises and that is so unbelievably cruel that you should go back to your corner and feel really bad for even bringing it up.

That's not how it works.

If men were literally unable to restrain from violating consent and performing violence, they don't get to run the world. They don't get to run the businesses, the governments, the households. They don't get to run around free on the streets, because, "ah, look at the puppy, he can't help it". They get locked up, detained and their penises probably wouldn't matter one iota to the equation. They'd be a threat to others and couldn't be allowed to walk free to victimize.

And if said behavior was inherent rather than learned, then too bad men, apparently, because that doesn't mean we go "welp, nothing we can do, trying to discourage this would be going against nature itself". Instead we'd be either keeping them in cages or controlled natural environments and killing them or tranquing them if they were found on the streets like we do other dangerous animals.

This desire to get it both ways, to be treated as the superior sex and exploit sexist tradition and yet somehow be free of responsibility for the actions undertaken doing so is sickening.

And it makes no sense outside of a "shut up, that's why" context. This fallacy is entirely about trying to use social guilt as a means of intimidating women out of talking about and bringing attention to a serious crime and trying to use a backhanded compliment (oh, you're so naturally virtuous, so if you don't stay in your gender roles, we'll come down with one hell of a double standard punishment) to enforce an exploitative and evil system.

And that goes double for any out there who believe that the "it's only natural" argument with regards to rape is at all worth a damn. You are disgusting rape apologists and I weep for any woman unfortunate enough to be trapped in a relationship with any of you.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:02 PM

yahoomess @202

Of course it's "satire". But the thing about satire, real genuine satire, and not this passive-aggressive bullshit he'll cower behind later, is that satire is a fucking knife.

Satire cuts like a mother fucker through the bullshit and gets to the heart of a matter.

Watch Blazing Saddles on the subject of racism. A Modest Proposal on English policies toward Ireland. Huckleberry Finn on Southern politics in the time of slavery.

Satire cuts. That's the point of satire, to cut through and shine usually very obviously as a pointed revelation of a serious wrong. It's dark humor, making light from tragedy, usually to demonstrate just how tragic it is. Look also at But I'm a Cheerleader with regards to pray away the gay camps.

This passive-aggressive "satire", on the other hand? What does it cut? What counter-argument is it parodying and what dark truth is being laid bare?

Well, the attempt is being made against feminist anti-rape arguments. That's where the passive-aggressive faux-"satire" comes into play. Going into tales of castration and how men could totally live without sex under the boots of Frau Feminazi.

But it doesn't cut.

Why doesn't it cut?

Because it's setup doesn't support anything. The first part is a very common, verbatim argument used by rape apologists in trying to argue that they are somehow off the hook on rape and violence against women because those behaviors are natural and to remove them would be to remove "manliness" itself.

Those arguments are never made by feminists. Or at least, not in nearly the same numbers. And yet, the second part, the "satire" is all about attacking feminism and anti-rape arguments as being over-the-top and violent to the male condition.

In short, it acknowledges the subject's agreement with the initial argument. What it's trying to cut and what it serves to demonstrate are discordant entirely because it's based on straw-men, bullshit, and unfortunate revelations about the self.

And that's the problem, satire is a knife.

This means in the hands of the careless, it just manages to make one look like an idiot or worse, cut one's own hand. If you base it on strawmen or arguments actually held by one's own side, then you end up with a mess.

And this is even worse in the hands of those who aren't actually interested in the art of satire, but the growing number of right-wingers who only understanding that the works of Bill Hicks, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor pissed them off, decided that satire was just the place that foul mouthed liberals hid their hatefilled attacks on right-wingers rather than an actual methodology.

By this I mean, there are many idiots on the right who just use the term "satire" as if it was a get-out-of-criticism free card to play from backlash because the arguments were made in jest.

Which is idiotic because satire is a knife. Those who actually satire something mean something. Mean something cutting and deep about an arena poorly challenged and should be expecting push-back from their opponents because they are often ripping the PR away from the wound and letting it stand as it is not as others would have you see it.

I have no doubts that Adams will argue that this is satire, much like his earlier rant on the wickedness of women, but each time he does so he reveals he has absolutely no understanding of the art of humor or its history.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:08 PM

Pacal @209

Yeah, that screams to one hell of a drowning in his male privilege that he can't see how women are constrained by our society.

Every day there is news story after news story at the often violent reprisals for women who dared think they were open and free to live their lives according to their desires rather than the desires of a man who thought they owned them.

Every day on the street is a reminder of men's belief in ownership, arguing with complete strangers that they should smile more, wear more clothing, wear less clothing, come over and sit on their dicks, hot momma, etc...

And that's before the unfortunately large pool of women growing up with intense shame of their own sexuality, literally having to fight the brainwashing of their raising environments, the triggers of previous abusive partners or rapists, just to get out a good orgasm like many men take for granted.

But I guess, it would be asking too much for a person with no understanding of consent to understand sexism.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:19 PM

AnotherDave @216

While missing the point of satire and "a modest proposal" in general.

"A Modest Proposal" isn't brilliant satire because it's dark, graphic, and offensive. If that was the case, then "A Serbian Film" or "Friday the 13th" would be satire and slashers would all be satires.

"A Modest Proposal" and satire works because they are making very specific points by demonstrating the paucity of the other side.

In "A Modest Proposal's" case, the work was trying to cut through an English racism that was arguing that despite England's role in the potato famine, the dirty Celts brought it on themselves and deserved to starve. Said arguments were made in dog whistles and polite language to hide the horror of the translated actions (the continued starvation and death of the Irish people). Many of them were similar to today's arguments that the poor need to stop having children if they are starving and that it isn't the government's job to take care of such drains on the public mint.

So Jonathan Swift cut through the appeals to moderate racism, classism, and anti-catholic bigotries. By presenting the "let them die" attitude as a ghoulish display where we force the Irish to eat their own children in accordance with said arguments that had been made about the state of the Irish, it cut through to the emotional honesty of the other side of the debate.

The arguments had been made about letting them and their children die out of nationalistic conflict and learned hatreds, so revealing the bloodlust broke through that and made people think about what they were supporting and just how inhuman they really viewed the Irish to be.

I'm seeing this too often in the modern age. Idiot "apolitical" types or right-wing fuckers like Adams deciding that satire is being passive-aggressively offensive to a target group and saying outrageous things. See also the "satire" of Rush Limbaugh or South Park.

These completely miss the point of satire. It's not offensive and ghoulish because "that's satire". They are offensive and ghoulish because they are cutting to the heart of the matter of offensive and ghoulish beliefs. It's the same reason that Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby are so disturbing. Because sexism is disturbing.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:28 PM

Addendum @219

This is also why right-wingers suck at satire.

Satire cuts to the heart of a matter, letting the truth shine through blunted only by a comic turn to find the dark humor in tragedy.

It's at it's best when it's deconstructing to the truth of a bunch of bluster and PR masking darker intent.

But liberals rarely mean any dark intent. You cut through most liberal suggestions and you get desires like "we want people to be able to afford health care", "we want to stop people starving to death in the streets", "we want women, blacks, gays, etc... to live their lives without fear", and so on.

Stripped of bullshit, leftward desires pretty much sound better than how they are generally argued for, whereas right-wing beliefs often base themselves on acceptable collateral damage for what they view as a "superior moral order" which is often codetalk itself for the continued domination of a dominant group and the unearned privileges and social power that comes with it.

So a right-winger trying to satirize say "left-wing beliefs about Obamacare" is going to run into a steep wall even before they start focusing on strawmen and conspiracy theories (hard to cut to the truth of a matter when you're not basing any of it on truth).

Because of reality's well known liberal bias, those to the right are just going to have a hard time selling satire.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 16, 2011 9:32 PM

@skeptifem Sorry, but I'm not buying it to that extend. That blog entry shows the same prusish disdain for sex and sexual fantasies that I'm used to from conservatives.

Unfortunately, skeptifem, despite being generally sensible, has a gaping hole (no double entendres intended) in her skepticism, and even rudimentary intellectual honesty, when it comes to certain aspects of sexuality (pornography and rough sex, particularly BDSM - from reading her posts, it seems that in her world, people like Greta Christina and "Furry Girl" are either brainwashed victims or don't even exist, which is fucking scary if you think about it). Her comments suggest this is due in significant part to personal trauma as well as ideological poisoning, for what it's worth.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:39 PM

On the whole "pro-male" thing, I'll just note the obvious.

Acting like men are either dangerous beasts who can't be trusted not to rape and murder at the drop of the hat or infantile children who can't be trusted to refrain from abusing or violating their fellow human beings seems to me to be the real "anti-male" position.

Feminists think men are adult human beings, equally as capable of performing the job of being mature full participants in society. That they can operate in our society, just like women, without needing to victimize and abuse. That they can engage in consensual sex and that they can even be expected to put in the same hard work as feminists in fixing our broken patriarchal system.

And that's the big conflict. These types of "pro-men" anti-feminists essentially want a free pass on being adults. They don't want to do any hard work fixing society. They don't want to have to grow up and change cultural beliefs as said society is changed. They want to be able to victimize others with no repercussions and they even want to be free from any dissent when they act like idiots.

They want everything they are used to, to do no work, have nothing change, and still not be looked down upon by the very people they want to continue to victimize.

And somehow feminists are "big bad mommy" telling them they can't have chocolate cake for dinner and that they have a bedtime by trying to treat them like equal adults.

And for some reason feminists are the ones who are supposed to be shamed and seen as man-hating for this.

I don't know, viewing men as incapable beasts seems a mite worse than whatever strawman bullshit of feminism they think makes us look bad.

Also, what's their constant obsession with women stealing men's dicks? Everything they don't like is castrating or feminizing and every critique by a feminist might as well by removing their balls.

On behalf of feminists everywhere, believe me, you can keep them. We don't want them. We really really don't want them.

Posted by: stompsfrogs | June 16, 2011 9:48 PM

I found this for Scott but I didn't feel like creating an account to show it to him:
http://alberta.ihollaback.org/files/2011/06/assault-prevention.jpg

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:52 PM

AnotherDave @224

As I note, that is mimicking the form of satire while missing its point entirely.

"A Modest Proposal" wasn't just a ludicrous proposal.

It wasn't just "eating babies is extreme and therefore humorous" (and I know he doesn't get that, because I've read the chapter of his book that was about his view of how humor works).

"A Modest Proposal" was about a very specific proposal.

In fact, the brilliance of "A Modest Proposal" is the response to a very common right-wing argument to show what would be gained by following them at the time of the Potato Famine.

That is "poor or racially undesirable people are starving because they have too many kids and thus unworthy of our support because of their bad decision-making".

This argument is still made today. It's basically about using sexual fears (they fuck too much, be jealous and angry at them for this immorality that you're not allowed") mixed with racism and classism (they can't take care of themselves and thus are like beasts, we should let them starve like beasts so they learn they're lessons).

"A Modest Proposal" skewers that, by letting the implied "punishment" (obviously death as it would play out) as well as the attitudes going in take center stage. So "they brought it on themselves" becomes "death is guaranteed and we all agree that the problems are they have too many babies and not enough food for them, so let them eat babies, after all, they are beasts and that's how beasts in nature act in times of famine".

The point of the satire was to get people to reassess the social current that had many seeing Irish people as inhuman and questioning just how inhuman they viewed them as.

Many will cheer on "yeah, not with my tax money", but fewer still when they have to openly slap the food out of a starving child's hands.

The point was the reminder of humanity, not a ludicrous proposal.

Idiots who have no idea why humor works just try and ape the form.

But the form has nothing to do with why it is satire.

So, yes, it may be true he tried to follow the form, but that just reveals how sad it is that he's a multimillionaire based on his humor because he has zero concept what he's doing (at least in this style, I argue he's brilliant at simply reiterating verbatim the absurdity of corporate cultures and the inherent insanity that they are out of their contexts, but that has nothing to do with any real understanding of the craft of humor).

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 9:59 PM

Addendum @229

Aptly demonstrated by AnotherDave's summary having little to no point.

"Men can't control their sexuality, it's natural, chemical castration" is a progression, but it doesn't say anything.

Those first two arguments are made by anti-feminists, not feminist critics of his posts. The third doesn't follow from the second. Rape and violent natural tendencies would be followed by incarceration and separation from the halls of power not meaningless show actions on the penises of America. The third isn't internally consistent with the argument in that chemical castration would have nothing to do with rape as it merely prevents someone getting it up and wouldn't stop someone say, shoving a bottle or a pool cue into someone or groping them without their will. And so on.

Any understanding of satire would prevent these problems because "having a point" is kind of the entire point of satire. That's why it's satire and not being a complete idiot douchebag who wants people to laugh at a stream of meaningless invective.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 10:12 PM

Toiletman @228

Actually those studies have been found to be utter garbage, including things like "hitting back" when struck or slaps as equivalent to blows, near-fatal beatings, torture with knives, guns, or household objects, and the threats and actions of stalking them when they leave to "finish the job".

This is not to say that men aren't the victims of domestic violence or rape, including at the hands of women. Nor that such actions don't end up going unreported owing to enormous social pressure on men that it reflects incredibly poorly on a man to be victimized at the hands of a woman. But rather that there is a number of highly publicized, unbelievably dishonest studies out there aiming to delegitimize all the genuine good work going into studying the nature of domestic violence and actually finding means of getting help to the victims of both sexes that need it.

And on the rape culture and how that interacts with asexuals. Oh yes, a thousand times yes. I wrote a blog article that got some decent circulation a while back on that exact topic and when I get around to writing a book on asexuality then I will definitely devote a big section to that very real, very pervasive problem among romantic asexuals.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 10:20 PM

Samantha @201

For those who can't access those journals (and they are really good journals that are much better resources than what I'm about to throw out), there's some decent enough resources out there for the layperson.

Shakesville's Rape Culture 101 is a great look at rape in our society and probably the best resource for the non-university connected. Additionally, a number of other feminist writers and bloggers have written personal narratives and scholarly research both online and in book forms (Yes Means Yes is one of my favorites).

Beyond that, there is any number of herstories that can be available at local libraries especially ones connected to a university.

So there's something for those who can't reach the journals.

Posted by: Dan L. | June 16, 2011 10:29 PM

That Adams would dare make public statements after his humiliating sock puppet fiasco is quite revealing. It shows a man utterly lost in his own narrative; IOW, a crank.

Posted by: monad | June 16, 2011 10:45 PM

@201 Samantha, @235 Cerberus:
Thanks! In this case I was asking more about effect on past cultures than what exists in ours. I do have access to some journals, so I will see which of those sources I can use.

Posted by: fuckin' kristinc | June 16, 2011 10:51 PM

Grahame:

Don't get me started on the number of boys medicated at schools to keep them in line.

Markita Lynda has the answer for you here:

It's the old double standard: men get extra credit for behaving themselves even marginally, while women get less because "being good" is natural to them.

Without necessarily buying into the idea that ADHD drugs are for "keeping people in line" -- I would bet that for every overly-rambunctious boy being medicated, there is a girl needing academic or other help who isn't getting it because she's quiet and unobtrusive, and that's how girls are supposed to be, so as long as she's quiet and unobtrusive everything is fine?

Then of course when a girl does act out rambunctiously it's more likely to be viewed as "bad behavior" and her as "bad" because the natural state of girls is to be quiet and socially skilled.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 10:57 PM

monad @239

On that account, I've found what is said around the issue as it were speaks volumes for that when reading old herstories of the 50s and 60s or growing up in the 20s and 30s.

There's a lot out there that talks about sort of assumed guarantees like the inevitability of rape and how that would combine with repressed cultures to assume that that was true of all sex.

The Vagina Monologues actually have a few sad inclusions that are basically about that, though the original interviewee may not have been aware of it.

Back further and more scholarly, you're better off with the historical sexuality studies Samantha noted. They tend to be the best at that, but a quick perusal over say The Feminine Mystique or the Vagina Monologues or herstories in general will reveal a few telling lines about how utterly emotionally crippling older versions of the rape culture were to women and how that often screwed over men as well as miserable trigger-space filled houseslaves trained to be repressed don't always find the time to be sex dynamos in bed, funnily enough.

Posted by: Cerberus, unnatural product of en-OMnomnom-ification | June 16, 2011 11:09 PM

Samantha @240

Hey, it was what monad was looking for and I found it useful myself to take a look for when I get access to a university account again, so I wouldn't apologize.

I was just adding to that and yeah, the Shakesville article on Rape Culture is one of the best articles on the subject I've ever encountered, especially for public access. Simply incredible.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 16, 2011 11:43 PM

@Mudpuddles

Hey, before I thought you were just emotionally resistant to reality and possibly dim. Now i see you're a dishonest piece of shit, lying about me.

Oh wait. I saved my end of the convo because I thought it was thought provoking. This is exactly what I was arguing you liar.

http://blogingproject.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-is-man.html

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 17, 2011 12:05 AM

And I couldn't leave it alone after all. I was totally thinking from the intro that it would read less like you and more like the Heroes thread. Awareness of our faults and the ease with which we fall back into them is crucial to social change, thanks for writing it out the way you did.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | June 17, 2011 12:52 AM

@Dhorvath

Template defaulted to red for links I think. Any better now?

Posted by: Aquaria | June 17, 2011 1:13 AM

Hey look, a lady being all offensive and shit. Is this unnatural or am I oppressing the menz with my filthy filthy language?

Sheesh. No wonder so many people used to think I was a man online, until I came up with a more "feminine" nym. I didn't know the XX chromosome meant I couldn't be offensive and cuss like a sailor or verbally tear off heads left and right.

Another crackpot cartoonist, à la Chester Gould and Johnny Hart.

Alan Moore isn't wrapped to tightly.

And Al Capp wasn't, either.

Now I'm really showing my age.

Audley, will you marry me? Or my horse?

:::Sniff!:::I said I was holding out for Tis to be my fake-husband, but I get it now.:::Sniff:::

Note to self: I hope he knows I'm teasing. He takes what I say so seriously sometimes...

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | June 17, 2011 1:35 AM

Mirror:

Well, I'm male, my sex life sucks and I'm unhappy about it AND ...

A lot of people are unhappy about their sex life, that's kind of a universal thing, which makes all the more of a pity that Adams carries on the way he does.

Posted by: chigau (◦_◦) | June 17, 2011 2:35 AM

#256 Giliell

She asked for it.
If I bought into that, my kids would be dead and I'd be in prison.

Not to mention those assholes on the freeway or in front of you in any line at the bank/grocery store/whatever.
Personal anger is not permission for violent behavior.

Posted by: echidna | June 17, 2011 3:25 AM

since I feel like he doesn't quite deserve the negativity he's getting here.

Your concern is noted. I beg to differ.

Posted by: furiouslysleepy | June 17, 2011 3:57 AM

Also, to those of you in relationships who have no desire to sleep with others: I'm happy for you, but that's apparently not how my brain work.

Since faithfulness is to a large extent cultural, I also feel justified in blaming society for feeling this lack of fulfillment/self-expression. I'm not even looking to harm other people, just have mutually pleasurable sex with them.

On the other hand, I could equally blame society for not inculcating sexual faithfulness in me, and try to change that aspect.

It's all very confusing once your desires are not your own. Are my meta-desires my own?

Posted by: Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes | June 17, 2011 5:16 AM

Generally, I find it a little hard to be mad at him because he's not even trying to make a sound argument most times, it's just an interesting, comedic way to look at things, driven strongly by a comedian's instinct.

No, I think it's a reason to be even more mad at him. You don't get excused for being willfully stupid. That's why sensible people aren't mad at the dog shitting on their front-lawn, because the dumb animal doesn't know any better, but at the owner who does know better and choses to act like a dumb animal. If somebody wants to discuss culture, politics and society via comedy, they have to be rather clever and have to target their humor at the right recipients. You know, like making fun of all those powerful men who are kind of surprised and feel unjustly prosecuted if they get a kick in the ass for being sexist idiots.

Blame and shame are society’s tools for keeping things under control."

This is quite nice, I think if everyone accepted this simple fact then we'd all be much better off. He should have stopped here.

No, for fuck's sake.
Blame and shame are the medieval control mechanisms, combined with fear. Enlightened societies work by education, by emphasis on reason and empathy. People who don't cheat on their partners usually don't refrain from doing so because they're afraid of blame and shame, but because they are in a commited relationship where their infidelity would cause harm to people.

"To be fair, if a man meets and marries the right woman, and she fulfills his needs, he might have no desire to tweet his meat to strangers. Everyone is different. But in general, society is organized as a virtual prison for men’s natural desires."

The problem, of course, is the word 'natural'. Take that out and he's correct. Many desires which are typically identified as male and cultivated in men, today, need to be policed.
No, the problem starts way earlier with the words "marries, right woman, fulfills his needs"
Look where the burden is on, look whose fault it is if he goes astray. Clearly, she can't have been the right woman and she failed at satisfying his needs.
You're both wrong.

Also, to those of you in relationships who have no desire to sleep with others: I'm happy for you, but that's apparently not how my brain work.

Since faithfulness is to a large extent cultural, I also feel justified in blaming society for feeling this lack of fulfillment/self-expression. I'm not even looking to harm other people, just have mutually pleasurable sex with them.

Then just go out and find a partner or a group who share your interests and desires. There are polyamourists out there, there are swingerclubs out there. There are couples who practice open relationships. None of those are reprehensible or need to be policed. They need to be agreed on.

Secondly, I think most of us have some whims that are pretty darned repulsive, and I don't think we should be vilified for merely expressing them verbally rather than acting to make them real. As an example, pedophiles! Pedophilia harms children and is rightfully abhorred for that, but recent research shows that it might be a sexual orientation and not some perverse choice born out of a desire to cause pain to children. So should we morally condemn pedophiles as sinners, or should be try to help them deal with this, while recognizing that asking someone to change hir sexual orientation is not a small request? (Provided they want help, of course.)

*Whooooooooosh* Anybody seen that goalpost? To your "hey, c'me on, we're all guilty of it *wink, wink* No, it's not about not having any "bad thoughts", but about arguing that not acting on them is: A) something you deserve a cookie for B) harming you in no small way

Wanting to take the newspaper and giving the idiot in front of you a good slapping isn't bad, doing so is.

And for the pedophile strawman
Well, most people with a bit of sense understand that pedophilia is most likely not a choice. Just like being hetero or homosexual isn't. And that's not what the discussion is about. Just like non-pedophiles don't get a cookie for not raping adults, pedophiles don't get one for not raping children.
Yes, in contrast to non-pedophiles there is no way for them to fullfill their sexual desires without rape, but that again makes us stumple into the pit of despair about whether people are dumb animals or rational beings:
-Either they see that their desires can't be fullfilled and abstain (probably with help), which means that we should support them and also help them with the problem of having desires that intrinsically harm children.
-Or they simply don't care because they're also psychopaths, in which case society has to control them.
-Or they are uncapable of controlling their desires in which case society has to take care of them, too.

So, where in that list would you like to put your average non-pedophile who might have a "dirty" idea?

Posted by: Simulation of Sapience | June 17, 2011 6:09 AM

So, Scott Adams has never learned of the various Modesty Laws (the violation of which carries the Death Penalty in some of the areas of the world where fundamentalist Abrahamic religions reign supreme) present throughout the world, some of which still exist in the United States of America?

It's easy enough to run the topic through a search engine for quick results.
This level of indolence when it comes to research suggests that Wally is Scott Adams' Author Avatar.

Posted by: Thunderbird 5 | June 17, 2011 6:14 AM

So how's he going to explain these "natural instincts of a women" when one hoofs him a good hard kick in the bollocks?

Posted by: Beatrice, anormalement indécente | June 17, 2011 6:45 AM

If indeed you're taking this post entirely seriously, you'll notice that he'd prefer chemical castration to a license to rape.

So, our choice is either taking it as a well intentioned joke gone bad or completely seriously? Because I think that what he wrote was partly a joke, but a wink wink nudge nudge, you know what I'm talking about type of joke. The kind of joke that is supposed to appeal to like minded individuals by affirming their ignorance. And if it pisses off those feminist prudes - two birds with one stone. So no, I don't think there is anything excusable in that post. Even if he's just bating people, he's still an ass. An ignorant ass.

Posted by: Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes | June 17, 2011 7:10 AM

Don't make me turn into my usual nasty self

@Hygaboo
You were asking for it: Fuck off

Posted by: Old Yippie | June 17, 2011 7:40 AM

In "A Modest Proposal's" case, the work was trying to cut through an English racism that was arguing that despite England's role in the potato famine, the dirty Celts brought it on themselves and deserved to starve.

One small problem with this sentence: "A Modest Proposal" was written in 1729. The Irish Potato Famine was in the 1840s.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlKvHIgdpJd4K_g-hHNofPPx25UCv1fORc | June 17, 2011 8:09 AM

One has to wonder how rampant rape and sociopathic behavior would be selected FOR in a social animal?

Dolphins are social animals and somehow they did it...

Posted by: furiouslysleepy | June 17, 2011 10:34 AM

@Giliell

If somebody wants to discuss culture, politics and society via comedy,

But that's the thing. As someone in this thread rightly pointed out, Adams is not doing satire, though he's using the tropes. He doesn't have any fixed conclusion he's trying to drive you towards. I've read his blog for a while, and I think the point of a lot of his posts (including this one) is to get the reader to challenge conventional wisdom or question his own squick reflex. In this case, he's using his (wrong, extremely wrong) view of innate gender differences to bring up a squick about biological tinkering: most people are repulsed by the idea of suppressing their sex drive with chemicals, though arguably most of the time it does us more harm than good (and for the exceptions, of course, you can always turn it on when you want.)

Another thing I feel about these types of posts is that they're rather incomplete in that he doesn't actually develop this line of thought any more. It's just interesting to him (and to me) to contemplate why we have this reflex. For example, he has a huge pile of fix-the-economy posts, each with a throwaway idea. He's not developing economic theory, but it's interesting to ask why these ideas would or would not work.

Blame and shame are the medieval control mechanisms, combined with fear. Enlightened societies work by education, by emphasis on reason and empathy.

I'd love to live in a society where everyone does the right thing because they've been convinced by reason, but that's not what I see around me. As far as I can tell, shame are fear are very much the dominant tools of social control today.

People who don't cheat on their partners usually don't refrain from doing so because they're afraid of blame and shame, but because they are in a commited relationship where their infidelity would cause harm to people.

Personally, I feel it's a combination of the two. Certainly, I feel like more people I know would cheat if cheating didn't have a stigma (albeit a smaller and smaller one) attached. For me, personally, it's a combination of the fear of losing my relationship, the desire to not cause emotional harm to someone I love, and the shame of going back on my promise and being a cheater.

Look where the burden is on, look whose fault it is if he goes astray. Clearly, she can't have been the right woman and she failed at satisfying his needs.

Again, maybe this just my fondness for him, but when I read that line, it sounded very much like he was saying "right woman for him" and not "right woman who is impossibly perfect in every way", and he was talking about the urge to cheat, not the actual act of cheating. It doesn't make sense to me to blame anyone for someone having the urge to cheat, as opposed to actually cheating, and I don't think Adams was blaming all women for not being the 'right' woman either.

Then just go out and find a partner or a group who share your interests and desires.

I'm sure you know that your glib suggestion isn't quite that readily implementable. Open marriages are not looked upon well by a lot of people, some of whom might be my bosses, or customers. Also, it's not my overriding priority in life to have sex with a lot of attractive people, just something I wish were practical. As it stands, I find that part of the reason it's not practical is that society enforces (a very sexist) monogamy (partially using blame and shame).

In any case, rest assured I'm doing what's practical to get what I want without hurting anyone else. I only left that comment to point out that not everyone in happy, committed relationships, is entirely satisfied (to the point of never having a morally problematic fantasy) with their sex life.

Finally, I don't see why the section about pedophiles is a strawman, but whatever. I choose your first option in all seriousness, for both pedophiles and people who get turned on by rape -- and I know that I'm ignoring people who rape as punishment or out of entitlement. Those are scum, and must be punished using fear and shame. At least until we have a more foolproof way of educating those who don't want to be educated.

@beatrice

So, our choice is either taking it as a well intentioned joke gone bad or completely seriously?

No, I think there's other options, like the one I've noted above.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 17, 2011 4:40 PM

Furiously Sleepy,

Also, to those of you in relationships who have no desire to sleep with others: I'm happy for you, but that's apparently not how my brain work.

Since faithfulness is to a large extent cultural, I also feel justified in blaming society for feeling this lack of fulfillment/self-expression. I'm not even looking to harm other people, just have mutually pleasurable sex with them.

So what exactly is stopping you? You are hardly the only person who wants more than one sexual partner and you are sitting there using the greatest tool ever invented for helping you to find like minded people to complain that you are restricted in terms of choice.
Even before the web some of us managed just fine at expanding our erotic networks and it has only gotten easier in recent years. Gimme a break.

Posted by: Samantha Vimes | June 17, 2011 7:59 PM

Scott Adams = Dogbert.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | June 17, 2011 9:38 PM

In general, I'm (dare I say it) with Sven on the "of course biological history enters into human behavior."

Of course, so is everyone here. When Sven says things like:

To deny the biological (neurological, neurochemical, developmental, endocrine, genetic, and ultimately evolutionary) contributions to any animal (even human) behavior is to be a science denialist of near-creationist blinkeredness.

He knows that no one disagrees with that statement, he knows he's making a strawman, he knows he's not arguing honestly. This has been pointed out to him every single time.

He's deliberately being dishonest.

Posted by: Mercurial Muse | June 18, 2011 4:22 AM

Square hole meet round peg:

Okay, have you ever walked in a mall and come across the Victoria's Secret store? Have you ever noticed those huge life-size posters of sexy young women in underwear striking pornographic poses, hanging in Vicroria's Secret storefront windows? Well, I have. And I can tell you, as a middle aged staight guy, it pisses me off! Why, you might ask? Because, what the hell am I supposed to do with these images being burnished into my brain while I'm walking around eating an ice cream cone? As I walk past the storefront display of life-size Victoria's Secret girls posed in naked ecstasy, I get very aroused and feel the natural urgency to masturbate. But I'm not allowed to masturbate in public. So what the hell do they want from me? Why are they torturing me like this? The answer is obvious. They want me to re-direct my natural urge to masturbate, and instead put my round peg into Victoria's square hole. Meaning: they want me to walk inside their store, whip out my wallet, and buy sexy lingerie for my girlfriend while I'm still hot and horny. So don't tell me society isn't complicit in manipulating men toward the "proper" holes. You can see it everywhere you look, if you just open your eyes.

Posted by: Arkham | June 18, 2011 5:56 AM

Just the mention of nearly naked women is evil. Are you trying to get the callouses on my hands to match those on my penis? It's either that or buy lingerie for my wife. I can't tell if you're fucking stupid or just young.
BTW, post one pic and it's done for me, I may need sprinklers to deal with the friction produced. Either that or buy a new chest to hold all of the new lingerie in my house.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | June 18, 2011 7:50 AM

As I walk past the storefront display of life-size Victoria's Secret girls posed in naked ecstasy, I get very aroused and feel the natural urgency to masturbate.

Perhaps if you had a sexual relationship with someone of the opposite or same sex, your masturbatory urges would lessen.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | June 18, 2011 7:59 AM

Mercurial Moron,
Once again, an "it's all about me" whine. Did it occur to you that the images are manipulating women, as well. While you want to screw those women, women want to be those women--or at least marketing and society have convinced them that they want to.

Dude, do you even have frontal lobes? Frankly, I don't have a problem with society's prohibitions, because I for one don't want to see you tugging on your tired, little winkie in public. Nor do I want to slip in the result.

Ferchrissake, is the mall the only place you see pornographic images? Dude, go home. Type "Pussy" into your search engine. Maybe it will keep you from posting here...for at least a minute or two, anyway.

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | June 18, 2011 8:50 AM

People can change is not an argument against someone's current status as enemy. Enemies can become allies.

It's not a matter of just "not getting it." He continually picks out feminisms that he disagrees with and personally attacks their purveyors to carve a place for himself as respectable.

Cluelessness I handle differently. He makes of himself an enemy, and so long as he does, I will treat him as such.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 18, 2011 7:13 PM

Since apparently people other than Mr. White Knight here are misreading my commentary, I'll elaborate:

Wow, that's a completely inappropriate way to respond to someone with whom you have practical disagreements over ideas.

I don't have "practical disagreements with her over ideas," I have observed her making and seconding unambiguously contrafactual blanket statements about pornography and rough sex as cultural phenomena and their relationships to individual preferences, attitudes, and behavior, ignoring those attempting to call her on it, and dismissing or denying the existence of feminists who don't share her perspectives on these topics. It is perfectly accurate to call "unskeptical" the acceptance of discredited, misogynistic* and misandric conceits simply because they happen to agree with prejudices one holds, and it is perfectly accurate to call "intellectually dishonest" a willful blindness to the discrediting (and internal implausibility) of some of the ideas one promotes, and outright denialism with regard to the refutations provided of one claims and the existence and legitimacy of members of one's group who don't share one's perspective on this issue. And it's reasonably to apply those labels to a person who is observed to consistently display behaviors matching those qualities, with such qualifiers as are necessary to accurately communicate one's perception.

And when you feel you just can't be an ally to someone, then don't, but your ideological disagreement does not automatically grant you license to practice the politics of personal destruction when an oppressed person finds utility in a more radical approach than you're comfortable with.

I brought it up here because I observed that the poster I responded to was disturbed by her statements. In at least one previous thread she left someone feeling traumatized because of the misinformation she had given him - essentially to the effect that "all porn is rape" - juxtaposed with his historical consumption of it, and I was very sorry I didn't notice that conversation in time to inject some perspective into it. I don't enjoy seeing other people hurt by lies (or misleadingly stated cherrypickings of "the truth", as the case may be) any more than I enjoy experiencing it myself, so I felt an ethical obligation to point out to someone who might have been mislead by her claims that I had reason to believe she was riding a hobby horse rather than attempting to engage with the truth in good faith.

Strange Gods, I agree that Azkyroth's comments step over a line. He doesn't understand Skeptifem's comments and shouldn't pretend he does--particularly by attributing them to some personal trauma.

This one from ARIDS, quoted out of order but most directly relevant to something that needs to be put into perspective for my responses to the rest of the post. Excuse me, but I have distinct recollections of at least one anti-porn, anti-rough-sex poster here referencing her personal experiences in one corner of the porn industry as a foundation of her outlook. I remembered that having been skeptifem. If I misremembered, then I apologize to her.

Here we have an instance of Azkyroth treating the purveyors of other feminisms as not just incorrect, but as bad and broken people, whose ideas can be dismissed just as easily as children's ideas, supposed personal trauma having reduced their agency as adults.

My intention was actually the opposite of this: I cited it as a possible explanation for the otherwise incongruous failures of skeptical thinking I've observed from her on this topic on the past, since it's perhaps more sympathetic than most of the other reasons people might find lies about sexual cultures and phenomena compelling and worth spreading. My intention was not to present a reason for dismissing her ideas on this topic, but a reason why one should not jump from the fact that her statements on this topic fail on their own merits to dismissing her ideas in general, as some people unfamiliar with her might have been tempted to.

That said, in retrospect there probably was no compelling reason to bring it up and I can see why it could justifiably be considered patronizing to rationalize someone else's mistakes for them. I'll try to avoid that.

*(Also, "treating the purveyors of other feminisms as not just incorrect, but as bad and broken people, whose ideas can be dismissed" is 50% of my complaint about "anti-porn" feminists in general, making this misreading rather ironic.)

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 18, 2011 8:27 PM

Also, I scanned your link. What about it is remotely on-topic?

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 18, 2011 9:33 PM

So you're not even going to admit that this was fucked up and wrong:

Her comments suggest this is due in significant part to personal trauma

regardless of whether you remembered her words correctly or not.

Anyone who actually read my reply already knows the answer to that one.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine | June 18, 2011 9:49 PM

Azkyroth,
The issue is NOT whether Skeptifem is right or wrong. The issue is whether the attribution of the cause of her comments and position was appropriate. I would contend that it was not. It was dismissive and patronizing at least, and slanderous at worst.

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 18, 2011 10:36 PM

The issue is NOT whether Skeptifem is right or wrong. The issue is whether the attribution of the cause of her comments and position was appropriate. I would contend that it was not. It was dismissive and patronizing at least, and slanderous at worst.

On that note, I have as much right to declare "what the issue is" as you do, and as far as I'm concerned, the issue is:

1) what I actually said,
2) what was meant by it and why I felt it was worth saying,
3) whether there are legitimate reasons why someone might arrive at the interpretation certain other comments have of it (mostly...not really)
4) whether what I actually said was justified (mostly, with exception as noted).

I don't accept your claim to the right to unilaterally define the scope of the debate.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 18, 2011 10:55 PM

Azkyroth,
I have not been particularly clear. Your lengthy reply attributed a variety of things to Skeptifem which you did not support, just leaving it to me, or any other reader, to trust your word that she has done what you suggest. Subsequent to that you defend your characterization of her in your previous comment as being based on a poorly remembered event that may have occurred to her or may not. This is hard for me to reconcile. Do you know that you are talking about things she has done in previous exchanges or not?

I too found her comment troubling, but both Mattir and Giliell made points that I might have and as people are not being pushed around due to sexual fantasies near as much as they are about their gender, I didn't feel it necessary to join in unless Skeptifem came back to address the issue.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 18, 2011 11:16 PM

John,
I seem to be good at picking those discussions. Apologies if you were hoping for more discussion of Adams.

Posted by: Dhorvath, OM | June 18, 2011 11:39 PM

Like a cat or toad?

Posted by: strange gods before me ॐ homintern radfem | June 18, 2011 11:58 PM

Thread is two and a half days old, and is not on the front page anymore. Thread has contained for two days unevidenced personal attacks. Comment #223 surely was derailment. After that, there are no happy options; fairness requires a request for evidence.

Posted by: Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes | June 19, 2011 9:50 AM

I'd love to live in a society where everyone does the right thing because they've been convinced by reason, but that's not what I see around me. As far as I can tell, shame are fear are very much the dominant tools of social control today.

So, you basically think that people only don't commit murder because the stains are hard to get out of the carpet? Funny that while your views on Adams are so geneours and optimistic, those on ordinary people are not.

Personally, I feel it's a combination of the two. Certainly, I feel like more people I know would cheat if cheating didn't have a stigma (albeit a smaller and smaller one) attached. For me, personally, it's a combination of the fear of losing my relationship, the desire to not cause emotional harm to someone I love, and the shame of going back on my promise and being a cheater.

So again, the people you know are basically assholes who'd gratify themselves on the expense of somebody else if only the neighbours wouldn't talk.
And I love how you're trying to redefine the concepts of fear and shame here.
Fear of losing a relationship and shame because you didn't keep a promise aren't the same as fear of punishment by law or social stigma and public shame for having done such a thing.

I'm sure you know that your glib suggestion isn't quite that readily implementable. Open marriages are not looked upon well by a lot of people, some of whom might be my bosses, or customers. Also, it's not my overriding priority in life to have sex with a lot of attractive people, just something I wish were practical. As it stands, I find that part of the reason it's not practical is that society enforces (a very sexist) monogamy (partially using blame and shame).

You're really lazy, aren't you? Because unless you're writing from Saudi Arabia or such a place, there are a bazillion ways to have consensual anonymous sex. I can name you three from the top of my head and I'm not even interested in that kind of stuff. Yes, open marriages are not generally accepted. Oh, and if the enforcement of monogamy is very sexist, please tell me, who gets it worse: a cheating husband or a cheating wife or the woman a husband cheats his wife with? You know, if you want to change society in a way it's more open towards alternative liefstyles and sexual orientation (not to conflate the two), probably all people here are with you. But if you want sympathy because the fact that you entered a relationship with somebody who prefers monogamy, you're in the wrong place. If you're too damn lazy to do anything to make your life suit your preferences and than complain about how society and your partner don't just change according to the way you wished things to be, you're not getting cookies here. Yes, I wished choclate made you lose weight, but I don't sit here on my fat ass and complain about how nature and science fail to provide me with such a thing.

Posted by: Emilemur | June 24, 2011 12:16 PM

Maybe the reason so many people think men can't keep it in their pants is because until the last few decades, society never asked them to!

I've been hearing the "men have stronger natural urges than women" claim a lot lately, almost always to try and "explain" why various famous men seem unable to keep it in their pants. The argument seems to be that history shows men have always been promiscuous and violent towards women, so it must be "natural" and nothing can be done about it. Sexual misbehavior by men (and although the motivation for rape may for be more about violence than lust - the reason we make such a big deal out of it is because it turns the sexual act into something horrific) will always be part of society, and the best we can do is remove offenders so that particular individual can't re-offend.

This seems to me fundamentally similar to the argument I have heard lately about why we shouldn't try to talk people out of believing in a god. In that case, I understand the argument to be, "Religious/magical thinking grows out of natural cognitive biases that have evolutionary benefits, so we're stuck with them." In both cases, the argument runs that human traits that have been around so long must be inevitable.

I disagree. I am an optimist, and I believe that the human race as a whole has the capacity to GROW UP. Growing up (and I am a teacher of LD teenagers, so I think about this a lot) means learning to monitor and adapt your own behavior so that you can be a happy, fulfilled, productive person. You know: make a living, have some friends, get laid every now and again, maybe do something really cool and even get famous, maybe have children and help them grow up well... Almost all of these goals involve other people, so a large part of growing up has to do with learning how to conform your behavior to that which is considered acceptable by your culture.

For the human race as a whole to grow up means human culture changing what it considers acceptable behavior, and that means increasingly valuing behavior that allows *everyone* to become happy, fulfilled, productive people. To my mind, that has been occurring with the rise of principles such as respect for the rights of others, personal autonomy and responsibility, equality, tolerance and even celebration of diversity. I also believe that the rise of scientific thinking -- with its emphasis on evidence, logic, and the willingness to let go of a lovely idea that doesn't fit the data -- has helped give rise to this growing maturity of the species. Think about it: slavery was once considered morally acceptable around the world, now it is tolerated in only a few places, and is met with shock and dismay when it is uncovered in public. Non-consensual sex was once considered an acceptable way to consummate a marriage, now we consider it appalling. Bleeding a patient used to be a medical "cure-all", now we have antibiotics, because we started paying attention to the fact that one method didn't work and one did.

I believe that, just as we are capable of outgrowing the idea that one person has the moral right to own another, or the idea that diseases are caused by demons, we are capable of outgrowing all kinds of hurtful and destructive beliefs and patterns of thought. Most grown-ups, men and women alike, are capable of mastering all kinds of troublesome impulses and controlling their expression in the physical world. And when I trained as a scientist I learned to be aware of the cognitive biases that can impede good research and to fight against them. Of all the lines in Scott Adams's appalling post, the one that actually got my hackles up the most was the line "The current view of such things is that the men are to blame for their own bad behavior." Don't tell me that people are not to blame for their own behavior. That's what it means to be a grown-up. It's not about who has the strongest urges, it's about children and grown-ups. BE THE GROWN-UP!

P.S. I have never posted before, so I didn't quite figure out how to do the "quote somebody else's post" thing. Sorry!

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 1, 2011 1:06 AM

Interestingly, Adams is wrong not by lack of intelligence or through bad logic, but on purpose.

He is a master for seemingly exceeding without ever really trying.

Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist | July 1, 2011 1:17 AM

That being "wrong on purpose" has to be the new "not intended to be a factual statement"